Tag Archives: Russia

The Communist rebels took over Russia in 1918, deposed a cruel and selfish Czar and then went on to amalgamate the Soviet Union of Eastern Bloc states with other communist nations at the ready to consume the USA . Had it not been for the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe they might have subsumed that as well.

There were many Christians then as now praying for the release of these nations and their trapped peoples from the mandatory atheism and materialism which is the foundational doctrine of socialist-communist political systems. For 70 long years it appeared those prayers would not be answered. Then finally as the poverty and bankruptcy of communism demolished Russia from within they started on the path of westernization. But what kind of government would replace this system? Would they simply replace one failure with another?

God would answer that generation of prayers with one man, a hard drinking street fighter of a leader in Boris Yeltsin and the kind of government would occur as a result of a side trip to a grocery store.

It was September 16, 1989 and Yeltsin, then newly elected to the new Soviet parliament and the Supreme Soviet, had just visited Johnson Space Center (Houston, Texas). What followed was …. an unscheduled trip inside a nearby Randall’s grocery store.

Yeltsin, then 58, roamed the aisles of Randall’s nodding his head in amazement. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, “there would be a revolution.”

Shoppers and employees stopped him to shake his hand and say hello. Yeltsin asked customers about what they were buying and how much it cost, later asking the store manager if one needed a special education to manage a store. He marveled at the produce section, the fresh fish market, and the checkout counter. He looked especially excited about frozen pudding pops.

“Even the Politburo doesn’t have this choice. Not even Mr. Gorbachev,” he said.

The fact that stores like these were on nearly every street corner in America amazed him. They even offered free cheese samples. Yeltsin didn’t leave empty-handed, as he was given a small bag of goodies to enjoy on his trip.

About a year after the Russian leader left office, a Yeltsin biographer later wrote that on the plane ride to Yeltsin’s next destination, Miami, he was despondent. He couldn’t stop thinking about the plentiful food at the grocery store and what his countrymen had to subsist on in Russia.

In Yeltsin’s own autobiography, he wrote about the experience at Randall’s, which shattered his view of communism. Two years later, he left the Communist Party and began making reforms to turn the economic tide in Russia.

“When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,” Yeltsin wrote. “That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it.”

So God took a plain man of the people to a grocery store and the future of the largest nation on earth was forever changed. Russia is by no means out of the woods today, but now Russians can worship again, buy consumer goods, and enough heat and food. They can wear jeans and play rock music, and hope for the future. Allowing Christianity is a major change because Christians bring life to a nation: “he who has the Son has life.”

God tells us, “Watch and pray and do not faint.” Just because we don’t see God working, is no reason to not pray. He uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. Expect it!

The scripture which outlines this problem is: Psalm 50:21 You thought that I was altogether like you;

This is called projection – the notion that others have the same motives, desires, theologies, and opinions as you do. And they base their behavior on this.

We all know the jealous woman who believes every woman is after her husband. Or worse yet, the men in the church actually believing that single woman are after them. Or, worse even than that, the pastor thinking all the single women are after all the men regardless of station.

This is a function of an overblown ego and has traditionally made the church a hostile place especially for single women and one of the reasons that pastors often go to lengths to marry single women off. It happened to a friend of mine in her later 20s. The pastor kept encouraging her to marry a young man who turned out to be homosexual. She left the church. And you wonder why people are church hopping. And maybe all this is because the men themselves rally are seeking to be pursued by women? Who knows.

Projection also infects nations. The Chinese are convinced that America is plotting to attack them with an armed force and take their land. If you will check on China, you will find that there really isn’t much there to acquire. China has minerals, but no water and fouled air. It is not a place anyone would want to acquire. But that is the mentality of a nation that is predatory and lurking about the South China Sea for lands to subsume. That is why China already snatched Mongolia and Tibet, and why the nation continues to suffer from the theft of land.

Tibet meanwhile has no desire to be part of China or to be anything but Tibet. Russia was also greedy for land, having assumed that grateful China would become part of the Soviet Union, a problem Chairman Mao recognized, Russia being unable for some unknown reason to develop their own properly and even today is nosing around the Middle East looking for territory. Always ambitious for someone else’s turf!

Working in China I learned that the Chinese thought all Americans were rich and white. I put on the blackboard a breakdown of races here – 55% Anglo (a word they prefer) 15% black, 12% Asian, 16% Hispanic, and so on. The number has no doubt changed today.

When I said I wanted to get a tan (the sun did not shine there for 2 straight months) they were horrified. Chinese girls put a product on their face to make them white. They look like ghosts to me. I used some indoor tanning product and they were shocked. I said I wanted to look like an American – but they didn’t understand. Americans are NOT white.

We assume people have the same beliefs. A woman told me a few years back that her son was gay. I said I was sorry. (Yes I am sorry. Gays die many years before straight people, are more often involved in domestic violence, and “divorce” more often than straight men.) Yes, I am sorry. She got huffy and said she was not sorry. I had assumed she knew something about this but I guessed wrong.

A Chinese underground press which I read daily was very happy about Anderson Cooper “coming out” as being gay. I wrote a comment on their blog that CNN was hardly much viewed by the American public, an established fact if one checks the TV numbers which come out daily.

CNN is very popular with English viewers abroad however. The man was irritated – what difference does that make he wanted to know. I replied that the CNN endorsement in foreign lands looked like something it was not; it may appear that American audiences are interested and involved, but not so. The perception of foreigners is that CNN is popular here; they could not have guessed of its dwindling audience. You can check TVbythenumbers online for a URL.

We make assumptions about culture. In the USA when you want someone to follow you, you wave with your hand at them. TOO LATE I learned that this was an obscene gesture in the Philippines. Sigh.

In Japan yellow is the color of death. For many years Isuzu would not paint a car yellow, but I was able to buy one myself when they realized Americans like yellow; it is the color of friendliness.

The list of projections can go on and on. The moral of the story is you assume nothing. Find out where people are and go from there. Many a marriage has crashed when the couple found out they shared little in common but their bedroom.

In a day when people tippy toe around the truth as though it was social cyanide, “what would Jesus do” is radical and unacceptable. But that should surprise no one – Jesus was unacceptable and unaccepted. Still, He continues to be the standard for us and our age.

Jesus’ focus was on the Temple in this passage since that was His House and Father God planned the Temple for prayer not commerce.

John 2:12-17 After this incident, Jesus, accompanied by his mother, his brothers and his disciples, went down to Capernaum and stayed there a few days. The Jewish Passover was approaching and Jesus made the journey up to Jerusalem. In the Temple he discovered cattle and sheep dealers and pigeon-sellers, as well as money-changers sitting at their tables. So he made a rough whip out of rope and drove the whole lot of them, sheep and cattle as well, out of the Temple. He sent the coins of the money-changers flying and turned their tables upside down. Then he said to the pigeon-dealers, “Take those things out of here. Don’t you dare turn my Father’s house into a market!”

If He did this today he would be jailed at the very least for disturbing the peace if not assault and damage to property. Jesus never damaged people; He turned over the tables not the people managing them. Jesus saves humans but He does not necessarily save systems, or governments.

He only acted on principle; in this case the love of money as the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10) was the source of the problem. Modern rioters murder for their cause and feel justified. But the use of violence to promote a righteous claim never works; it only promotes more violence. Think of Black Lives Matter here.

Jesus takes on a host of leaders who contaminate the word of God with lies and deception. Matthew 23:16-30

16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing. But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is obligated.’17

Swearing was and still is a form of verification of one’s word. In court we swear on the Bible; some Christian denominations refuse to swear on anything because the Bible specifically opposes that. Your word should be sufficient. Of course for those who want to lie, nothing makes any difference anyway.

But swearing on anything makes no sense. In no way does it confirm or deny the what was stated. Furthermore the Lords of Swearing have made yet another rule for living. You can always tell when a government is failing by how many worthless and futile rules it has. Continue reading →

Prophetic Alert by Kim Clement

January 17th, 2015 – From The Den

Is this the end? No! I see light in the nations. I see the Jews returning to their land from all over the world. Do not fear, says the Lord. If you fear, they will know it. If you fear, your enemies will know it. Do you remember when the spies returned from the land and they said we are afraid for the giants are in the land. They said these words: they said, “they saw us as grasshoppers, therefore we saw ourselves as grasshoppers. Therefore, they saw us as grasshoppers as well.” We are not grasshoppers! We are giant slayers. We are Davids of this world! We are Davids of this world! We are the Davids of this world. We don’t see the giants; we see the slayed. We see a mighty army being raised up. Arise in this meeting, O Lord. Speak to us and destroy the power of our enemies, I pray in the Name Yeshua! Continue reading →

This is a topic about which few people write. But the Bible is clear; in addition to individual judgment, nations will be called to account. Does this happen after the end of time, during time, or some other time? Perhaps all three.

Let’s look at the map. China is the largest single nation in terms of population on the face of the earth. It is rife with poverty and lack of rain. In spite of the fact that China has been a distinct national group she has been a land of war for the better part of 4,000 years. All their pride in longevity does not erase the the reality of failure in so many ways. But look at what China did.

China swiped two nations, Mongolia, which is about the same age as China, and Tibet. That happened around 70 years ago and the wounds and anger have not subsided. You can be sure when things do not improve God’s word has been violated in some way. Here is the scripture.

Acts 17:26 And He has made from one blood[a] every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,

The Greek word in this passage is “ethnos” meaning an ethnic group of some kind, usually based on language.

In other words, keep your hands off another nation, their people and their land mass. Period. Because China was weakened by civil war, the Japanese got their hooks into China in the 1930s perpetrating great evil on the Chinese people – and look what happened to Japan at the end of World War 2.

Germany got greedy and took Austria, Poland, Italy and France, headed towards England, Spain, Russia and the rest of the Slavic nations. Look at what happened. Germany was basically destroyed. Only the work ethic of Germans brought it back, and Germany did apologize for its anti-Semitic behavior until lately.

Japan has not apologized, and she continues to move 3 steps forward and 2 back decade after decade. Not only has Japan not apologized for its wickedness (think of the Rape of Nanjing) but Japan is now romancing Mongolia because she wants land and Mongolia is the largest land-locked nation on the globe. The Mongolians have reason to be angry at China and they might just welcome Japan. The Chinese have reason to be nervous once more.

Then there is North Korea, a nation reduced to cannibalism in order to survive. China created this false barrier against the Japanese and the Americans, and North Korea has been a threat, much of that hot air, ever since. North Korea needs to return to its natural language fold – and will according to many modern prophets. [see KimClement.com]

Is anyone more miserable than the Muslims? See the constant wars in the Middle East. The Islamic religion (Koran) says that Islam will take over the whole world, or death to non-believers, called “infidels” a simple, direct theology which is creeping into every nation. But their losses continue. They kill at random, esp. women and children. Allah is descended from the ancient god of war.

How can a group survive if they kill off both the next generation and the women who will produce children? Don’t try to answer that one. Death is not a solution to the world’s problems. God says He wants life,

and life more abundantly. John 10:10

God’s plan is not abortion but life. Islam is going the exact opposite way from God.

The Middle East today, 2013, is a giant mess, politically and economically. When Egypt agreed to be at peace with Israel all was well. Now, no more. Egypt ended its provision of oil to Israel and the bottom dropped out of their own oil supply while Israel found 100 years of oil under their land. We say in Texas – Don’t mess with Texas. In Israel they say Don’t mess with Israel.

In fact there is a scripture for that. Genesis 12:3 – (paraphrased) If you bless God’s people, He will bless you. If you curse God’s people God will curse you. I’m not saying this because I am a Christian and an American – but because I have read the Word and I know what it says. More importantly, I know God means it and He won’t change His mind. Period.

You are not convinced? Look at Africa’s 200 years of constant wars. The Muslims in Sudan fought for South Sudan with much killing and terror. But South Sudan was able to separate itself as an individual nation in 2012 and is very prosperous. Now North Sudan is separate and living in poverty. That is what war does. It brings poverty and poverty is another sign of God’s displeasure.